This Week in Depravity

Virtually every day of the week some atrocity is committed by Islamic fanatics somewhere in the world. (See the table at the bottom of the blog for a summary of the past 30 days.) The mindless death and destruction is insidious, yet sadly routine. Because it happens with such regularity, many who are far from the action exhibit a certain ennui.

Sometimes, however, the sheer depth of depravity of the perpetrators demands attention, and calls into question a culture that could form and develop such cretins. Here are the headlines for this week in depravity:

Afghan Woman’s Nose Is Cut Off by Her Husband
Defiling the face of one’s wife is unfortunately not an uncommon crime committed by angry or jealous husbands in and around Afghanistan and Pakistan. Countless stories abound of aggrieved men splashing acid onto women’s faces, or slashing the flesh so as to disfigure their “loved one,” thus turning her into the village freak. It happened again this week after a sub-human named Muhammad Khan and his wife Reza Gul got into an argument. Choosing violence over marriage counseling, Khan sliced off his wife’s nose. After the assault, Khan and his brother whisked Gul off with the intention of killing her, but family members interceded. Although Gul made it to the hospital before bleeding out, her severed nose was too damaged to be reattached.

By the way, the argument started when Khan, 25, informed his duly-shocked wife that he had taken his uncle’s 7-year-old daughter as his fiancée, with the intention of making her his second wife this year.

Boy Accused of Blasphemy Cuts off his own Hand
During a religious celebration, a cleric named Shabbir Ahmed posed a question to the congregation: “Who among you is a follower of Muhammad?” Everyone (naturally) raised their hands. Ahmed asked another probing question: “Who among you doesn’t believe in the teachings of the Holy Prophet? Raise your hands!”

A 15-year old boy raised his hand – and when he noticed his was the only hand up, he belated realized he had misheard the question. After all, the cleric had followed a positive question with a confusing negative. Rather than perhaps giving the boy a chance to answer again, this literal blockhead began calling out the boy as a “blasphemer” – a tough accusation in a country like Pakistan where freedom of thought is not looked upon kindly.

The boy subsequently went to his family’s barn, turned on some kind of power tool, and sliced off his own right hand – which he then took to the cleric to demonstrate his profound sorrow for being a blasphemer (even though he must have known he was certainly not.)

Thankfully, the police arrested the cleric. The local police chief noted, “Such illiterate imams of mosques should not be allowed to deliver speeches.” Unfortunately, his opinion seems to be in the minority.

The boy’s father, although saddened by his son’s action (and the expense that would accrue from his new handless state), said, “My only solace is that he did it for the Prophet.”

Man Hurled Off a Building Because He was Gay
The headline says it all: depraved self-appointed arbiters of acceptable behavior who decide proper punishments – no doubt drawn from medieval texts – tossed a human being off a tall building for the crime of being gay. (Although judging from past stories of horrific punishments, it is just as likely as not that the executioners were mistaken about the man’s orientation.)

This story reminded me of another report from September in which U.S. military personnel revealed how they could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base – and were ordered to ignore it.

According to the New York Times , “Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally ‘boy play.’” No doubt, these depraved hypocrites prey upon young boys because they are so incompetent when it comes to interacting with women. Strange, though – I haven’t read any reports of Afghan commanders getting the boot off of a building.